FMI Applauds Passage of Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

Dec 13, 2010

ARLINGTON, VA – December 13, 2010 – Today President Obama signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) issued the following statement from President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie G. Sarasin:

“We commend President Obama for signing into law The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act which will help ensure our nation's children have access to healthy nutritious foods at schools and at home.

It also contains important policy changes that lay the groundwork for the modernization of the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, a long-standing initiative that helps provide healthy, nutritious foods to more than 9 million women and children every year. Modernizing the WIC program to make it compatible with electronic benefits transfer (EBT) technology will increase the efficiency of the program for both WIC-eligible mothers and grocers, reduce the stigma associated with presenting a paper coupon for payment and allow participants greater purchasing flexibility. This is a great step forward for the WIC program.”

Food Marketing Institute proudly advocates on behalf of the food retail industry, which employs nearly 5 million workers and represents a combined annual sales volume of almost $800 billion. FMI member companies operate nearly 33,000 retail food stores and 12,000 pharmacies. FMI membership includes the entire spectrum of food retail venues; single owner grocery stores, large multi-store supermarket chains, pharmacies, online and mixed retail stores. Through programs in public affairs, food safety, research, education, health and wellness and industry relations, FMI offers resources and provides valuable benefits to almost 1,000 ­­­food retail and wholesale member companies and serves 85 international retail member companies. In addition, FMI has almost 500 associate member companies that provide products and services to the food retail industry. For more information, visit www.fmi.org and for information regarding the FMI Foundation, visit www.fmifoundation.org.